ABSTRACT
This chapter presents evidence concerning varying amounts, causes, and consequences of social mobility in different countries. Although it is clear that social mobility is related in many ways to the economic expansion of industrial societies, it is at least doubtful that the rates of mobility and of expansion are correlated. The similarity between those mobility patterns of Europe and America that are created by interclass marriages is in some ways even more interesting than the similarity between the patterns of occupational mobility. Several different processes inherent in all modern social structures have a direct effect on the rate of social mobility, and help account for the similarities in rates in different countries. They are changes in the number of available vacancies; different rates of fertility, changes in the rank accorded to occupations, changes in the number of inheritable status-positions, and changes in the legal restrictions pertaining to potential opportunities.
